[center][h3][color=C0392B]Rudolf Sagramore[/color][/h3][/center]

High above the morning forest, against the tawny hues of daybreak, sparks flew as one auxiliary of the old legion of Sagramore struggled against the limits of his own ability. Alone, against a foe he'd just watched force the twin luminaries of the war he'd not been enough to join out of the fight in short order— planting Galahad through the deck, forcing Izayoi to call for a switch. 

He didn't have time to protest— hell, he barely had time to register just what she'd demanded of him while stowing his spent materia, before Valon had made his own demands clear. The prospect was terrifying, after all he had seen in the past instants, but if there was any silver lining... It was that desperation always bore action. With the turncoat dragoon right in his face, it was [i]act,[/i] or get skewered. Moment by moment, breath by sharp, hitched breath, the young man skirted past doom by an edge of steel and no further. So it should have been, and yet—

A line opened up along the bridge of his nose, even as he brought the curved sword he wielded to bear to intercept another flash in its immediate wake, fast as any thrust he'd seen in his meager nineteen years. Were it not for Selene's empowerment, he would have caught neither for certain. But it wasn't deep. For all he had laughed, boasted, and demonstrated the raw force he could produce in a mere instant before they had crossed blades, Valon could surely have gouged him far, far deeper— if not worse.

He inched backwards, forced to give ground with each parry, each catch of the awkward but clearly robust, nimble gunlance, only lashing out with basic, singular strikes to try and wedge some room to breathe, room to [i]think[/i] in. As the runt of a fighting family, there was no doubt in his mind [i]what[/i] was happening [sup]1[/sup]— he could hear it on the mocking edge to the laughter, the sarcastically light touch to each blow that rang down the spine of his sword, the dance of the biting head as it always made sure to harry him away from even drawing his second blade. He wasn't even remotely being dealt with as a serious threat; just the perfect vessel for that stated broader goal of [i]wasting their time[/i]. 

With the two big ticket items out of the way, what fear would [i]he[/i] have for little old Rudolf, the weakling brother of his contemporary who had been "too sickly to move" until a month ago, as far as he was concerned?

A slash down. A lazy sidestep, flanked by a snicker and another burst of stabs— two lines drawn against Rudolf's arm, as three were read and knocked away. From the perspective of just about anyone, this was horrendous. Rudolf was smaller, weaker, slower. His armor was worse, his weapon shorter. His opponent was fresh, riding high on the confidence of power newly redoubled, and he and the rest of the Kirins were still damned near at the end of their ropes after what felt like nonstop battle, ever since they'd first left Brightlam. The deck was wholly stacked against him. A losing fight.

Twin flashes of red hair, flickering at the edges of his mind even as his body recalled rhythm, read form, his eyes focused less on shape and more on movement. They belonged to men from far south of here[sup]2[/sup], whose swords and spears he had collectively spent a thousand hours at the wrong end of, for five long years. A telltale crouch, miniscule since it was before no armored dragon's hide to pierce, but nonetheless a mirror to the thunderheaded Dragoon that Rudolf had watched for a tiny eternity after the flame he carried had been loosed, that he had taught himself to recognize a thousand times over, to prepare defense before the strike was uncorked into the opening he'd left for it.

A black fire roiling inside him. One his horrendous luck had hidden from Valon, dropping Rudolf beneath the waves before the former scion of Arkha had real chance to see it in action. One that, with the stakes this high, the time this short, and the foe this obscene, Rudolf had no choice but to spare no expense with.[sup]3[/sup]

Sparks flew, and the boy bit out an acerbic smirk in spite of his hammering heart, his ringing bones, his short breath, knocked back just a little further in his hasty defense against the dragoon's onslaught than last time.

[color=c0392b]"Honestly, I did the spear a favor,"[/color] he bit out, the pale blackened copper of his eyes locking with Valon's visor before pointedly flickering to the gunlance he held. His hamstrings coiled, ready to spring. [color=c0392b]"Trying to put it through Leviathan's a nobler place to end up than whatever the hell you've been up to— something abominable like [i]that's[/i] much more your style now than when you were a [i]proper[/i] dragoon."[/color]

[color=c0392b][i]Incense him. Get him to commit over just that extra bit of space, allow for room to time it, then———[/i][/color]

Behind his eyes, his instincts flashed, and his jaws snapped over the scaled neck.

[color=ed1c24][i]Show him how a tiger hunts a dragon.[/i][/color]

What Valon had never once gotten the chance to learn, what set Rudolf apart from Galahad, from Izayoi, from even Otto... was that he was a [i]veteran[/i] of losing fights. 

The next thrust would be [i]forced[/i] down, as Rudolf planted his boot through the haft as though he meant to break it in two, all his might brought to bear to knock both lance and lancer off course, to break posture. As he bore his weight in, his right arm swung out in a reverse swipe with that lone Crane's Wing, this time coated in the inky, opaque blackflame, right at Valon's head. There wasn't a chance it'd pierce his helm. Rudolf didn't need it to— the heavy, lingering blaze would be ample smokescreen for his true strike.

He pushed off, praying to Himstus, to Dhinas, to even Imir that with Selene's speed and the surprise of the counteroffensive he could make this gambit stick, and ripped free his trusty Rondel, channeling more of his passenger's shadowy fire through the rigid length of steel as he attempted to jam it past his gorget.

He could worry about what he had just burned when it manifested. They didn't have any time to give up to this bastard— and if he didn't win initiative back, he was going to run out all the same.[sup]4[/sup]

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[*][sub]1. The "How to Deal With It" should be implicitly understood as the problem, but he never got around to delineating that.[/sub]
[*][sub]2. I'm not doing that. Believe me, I would not screw around in this situation, this is all Rudolf's subconscious overlaying the silhouettes of people from home over the occult-enhanced (like our pact but made tastelessly, I'm sure) Dragoon that's playing with him like a cat with food.[/sub]
[*][sub]3. We'll get to the ramifications of this when we've ensured we still have unpunctured lungs in the next five seconds. Unfortunately for me, we did all remind each other just now that Hunting Giants was our one-hit wonder.[/sub]
[*][sub]4. Despite how little argument there is to be made on this point, I think I'm allowed to miss the scaredy-cat you all met back in Atsu a little, and the way he would at least blink at being tossed into the deep end by the ex-mother. Or at the ex-mother herself. I think we beat some measure of self-preservation out of him that makes MY continued existence a hell of a lot harder, let alone Ours.[/sub]
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